


The Falconers win the 2016 Stanley Cup!...And other things happened too

by twhirlpool



Series: OMG Check Please vs. the Hockey Media [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Hockey Media, Hockey Youtube, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 12:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17426123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twhirlpool/pseuds/twhirlpool
Summary: Steve Dangle only has fifteen minutes to talk about the 2016 Stanley Cup on his Youtube channel and devotes all fifteen to the man of the hour.





	The Falconers win the 2016 Stanley Cup!...And other things happened too

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Steve Dangle has Jack Zimmermann problems](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091663) by [DarkWaterFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/pseuds/DarkWaterFalls). 



> 1\. This is kinda prequel to the fic I *really * wanted write, which was about Bitty in the NHL. Unfortunately I kept getting sidetracked talking about Jack and how amazing his story is. I have a lot of Jack Zimmermann feelings and I projected them onto my favorite hockey youtuber, Steve Dangle. I recommend watching one of his videos on his own channel (he also does videos for Sportsnet) to get a feel for what I'm trying to portray. I particularly like this one: (LFR8 - Game 34 - Big Fish - Tor 0, Chi 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9mxRlelY8o&t=8s&list=PLArHFG1pACBrlil6tgpxp88vR_CWyn_Sl&index=35 ). It gives you a sense of his style and humor when it comes to his team, but also what he sounds like when he goes beyond hockey and gets serious.
> 
> 2\. Dangle uses a lot of jump cuts, I tried kinda writing in the style of one of his videos. Try to imagine each paragraph break as a jump cut.
> 
> 3\. Iggy is Steve's dog. Hat Guy is a character in Steve's videos. It's him with a gruff voice and wearing a hat.
> 
> 4\. I'm pretty sure Steve tracks his tag considering the number of times he's read his own fanfiction on his podcast. So...hi Steve.
> 
> Edit: some people have commented (btw I love everyone who commented and left kudos and even read this damn thing) that they wanted to read more Steve Dangle/Check Please, so I put that this fic was inspired by another Steve Dangle/Check Please series by DarkWaterFalls.

Hat Guy: [stares]  
Steve: [stares]  
Hat Guy: So…what do you want to talk about?  
Steve: Everything.  
Hat Guy: Really Steve, everything?  
Steve: Yeah, everything.  
Hat Guy: Then why did you leave this video to fifteen minutes before Iggy’s appointment at the groomers’?  
Steve: What?  
Hat Guy: Yeah, you gotta finish this before-  
Steve: No wait – how do YOU know about this appointment, and I don’t?  
Hat Guy: Mrs. Dangle OBVIOUSLY knows who’s the trustworthy one here. 

[Intro to LFR9]

The Providence Falconers are your 2016 Stanley Cup Champions!

Woo!

And there’s so much I want to talk about. The season the Falconers have had, the season the Schooners had, each and every single player, the coaches, the management, who won the Dangle family playoff bracket,

(It was Iggy.)

But you know what, if I talk about all of that and give each story the time it deserves, I’ll be editing this video until the NEXT Stanley Cup. So we’ll talk about everything else on the podcast, but I cannot. Cannot. I can’t NOT talk about Jack Zimmermann.

What he did, was incredible. And I’ll be honest…I cried.

Not just the historic and trailblazing thing he did at the end; from the moment he was given the Cup it was just *sniff* oh my heart. Because I have been rooting for this guy to make it since before the season even started.

Let’s rewind. What back to the beginning of the season? Back to when he signed last March?

Nope! We’re going back to the beginning: the 2009 NHL Draft.

Jack Zimmermann is a consensus top-two pick. The only real question is he going to go first and his teammate Kent Parson second, or the other way around.  
The son of the Habs and Penguins legend, Hall of Famer, Bad Bob Zimmermann, has arrived. Is arriving.  
The Prince of hockey.  
Did you know he pooped in the Stanley Cup? It’s true, here’s the picture. He’s the only person to have done that more than once by the way.  
Everything, the stage was set, for Jack Zimmermann’s ascension.

 

And the night before the draft, breaking news: Jack Zimmermann has overdosed.

 

He’s been rushed to the hospital.

 

He’s dropping out of the NHL Draft.

Mad scramble, no one saw this coming. Reporters are scrambling, teams are scrambling, everyone is panicking. And the most important question: will he survive?

Not his hockey career. We’re talking about an 18 year old kid and his *life*.

And that concern lasted…until the morning when it was reported that he was stable, and then everyone turned into a freaking vulture.

Blame game all around. Whose fault is this? Was it a suicide attempt? What drugs was it? Was he even that good in the first place? Muckraking. Slander. Dragging his name through the mud. Not just *his* name: his legendary hockey player dad, his famous Hollywood mom, his coaches, his billet parents, his friends, teammates, neighbors, team doctors, the guy at Canadian Tire who sold him hair dye that one time!

Everyone was climbing over themselves to say that they knew from the beginning, that he was overrated, a disaster in the making. Everyone was climbing over themselves to trash this KID.

But eventually, the hockey world moved on. Not before staking out his hospital, home, and rehab. But they moved on.

Over the next couple years, he coached midgets, was flying under the radar. NO one really knew what he was doing, and quite honestly, no one cared. He’s obviously done with playing. He’s not gonna go pro. Who cares?

The Britney Spears meltdown was over and no one wanted to talk about the quiet recovery.

Then about five years ago, small article came up: Jack Zimmermann is going to college.

Not to BU or Michigan or one of these hockey power NCAA schools: Samwell. A small, liberal *Ivy League* university. The hockey team is the best of their athletics at Division I, but it’s still not one to pay attention to.

 

Also, look at this mascot.

[picture of Wellie] It’s… a dancing well. I have so many questions.

 

And a few people, people who didn’t forget that sleepless night in 2009 wondering if this kid would live, are thinking “hey, he might be back.”

And then BOOM Samwell is in the ECAC playoffs, breaking ankles and taking names.

They don’t go far, but it’s obvious that the driving force is a name we haven’t heard for a while: Jack Zimmermann.

People start to get curious, they ask him if he’s going to declare for the draft that year, is this the beginning of a vaunted Zimmermann comeback?!

And he says “No. I’m going to finish my degree.”

He does show up to dev camps in the summers, but he’s not the best interview. You can watch those if you want, they’re buried in some of the teams' Youtube channels. Don’t waste your team, they are peak hockey interview. He gives up NOTHING. Doesn’t talk about the overdose, his break from hockey, his intentions, just says he’s getting his degree and keeping his options open. And if anyone asks a question about the overdose, he walks out. He gets a reputation as a hockey robot, spoiled brat, unwilling to take responsibility, blah blah blah.

He captains the Samwell team for the next three years. It is obvious that he is a tier above everyone he was playing with, but it isn't until his junior year that he finally gets linemates who could keep up with what he's doing on the ice. 

We can skip ahead to his senior year, where he’s clearly on fire and he leads that team to the Frozen Four final where they lose a heartbreaker to Providence College.

 

And after the season of his senior year, after he’s set to graduate from one of the most prestigious universities in the country, THAT’S when he signs with the Providence Falconers.

A confusing choice for some of the hockey minds to understand. He’s French-Canadian, but not playing for the Habs.

Didn’t go to a contender like Tampa where he was guaranteed to win.

Didn’t go to Pittsburgh, another city that would have welcomed him with open arms.

I wanted him to come to the Leafs, but I understand why he didn’t.

[whispers] They sucked.

He goes to a middling team, near his old school. No one would call the Falconers *bad*…but they weren’t *good* either.

A solid, middle-of-the-pack, probably making the playoffs but also probably not succeeding once they got there.

The Falconers…didn’t seem that special. It was kind of a mystery why Zimmermann would choose them over all of the options he had.

And then this season?

WHOO!

Bursts onto the scene! Leads his team in points! Forty-two goals, FIFTY-ONE assists! Leads the league in rookie scoring!

“That’s only because McDavid-“  
Shut up, we’ll talk about him later.

He gets an “A” halfway through the season! Yes I know the Falconers have never had a captain, it’s kind of their thing, but an “A”! It’s virtually unheard of for a rookie to be given ANY kind of official leadership role.

Remember how criticized the Penguins were when they gave Crosby an A halfway through his rookie season?

(Some of you just said “no” and I secretly resent you for that)

But he’s clearly a leader on the team. The other rookies, the call-ups, keep talking about him, how he’s helping their game, staying after to practice with them, to make them better. To make the *team* better. He wasn’t handed that letter, he *earned* it.

And the part that no one seems to be acknowledging: he opens up.

His interviews, those silly behind the scenes videos they do, the practice videos, he’s a little looser.

He’s smiling.

He’s talking.

And he’s not a kid anymore: he’s a man.

He does those “Falconer Faceoff” videos where they compete in random things. You learn that he’s really good at drawing. That he’s a competitive son of a gun. He’s really awkward in front of a camera, but he’s not scared. That he’s not very good with technology. That he majored in history. You learn about what he wrote for his senior thesis.

I didn’t understand it, but it sounded really smart.

 

He gives an interview with Under the Hood – it’s like those Leaf: Blueprint videos but for the Falconers – and for the first time talks publicly about his overdose. And in it he reveals that he has an anxiety disorder.

And what he overdosed on was a combination of his anxiety medication and alcohol.

Now all the awful crap that everyone’s been screaming at him seems…really bad in retrospect.

Listen, I know I’m spending a lot of time on this, on these specifics that don’t really have much to do with the actual game/sport of hockey, but you’ve gotta understand:

I’m 28. I’m only like two years older than him. I was 20 when Jack Zimmermann overdosed. I watched basically a high school senior, an incredibly bright and promising kid, about to die, on the news.

Some of you are still teenagers or even younger, so you don’t get this. But once you hit 20, teenagers start to seem so damn *young*. Eighteen year olds seem so *young*. They're babies! You look back to when you were eighteen and you think "who the hell looks at that and say 'yup! That's an adult!'"

And as you get older, that feeling just keeps getting stronger.

At 20, watching the media tear into an 18-year old seemed distasteful.

At 29? Looking back on the things that were said about him, about this *kid*, it’s downright disgraceful. 

And now to find out that on top of dealing with those awful comments, at such a young age, he was hearing those through the lens of anxiety?

It’s astonishing. It’s astonishing that he came back. And succeeded.

It is so important. So important. That Jack Zimmermann is in the NHL.

Seven years too late, some might say, but he’s here.

And all of that potential they talked about in 2008, 2009? It’s not potential anymore.

 

It’s fully realized, developed, SKILL.

 

He leads the Falconers into a divisional playoff spot.

He visits the local children’s hospital.

He gets his first NHL hat trick.

He gets into his first NHL fight.

He visits his old school.

He speaks out about mental illness.

And he scores.

He scores, a LOT.

Ninety-three regular season points in eighty-two games.

Thirty points in twenty-four playoff games.

And of course

The game-winning, overtime, goal. Of Game 7. In the Stanley Cup Final.

If you end the movie right there, it’s as perfect as it gets.

You zoom out, the resolution shows him winning the Conn Smythe, AS A ROOKIE!

And it’s perfect..

But no.

He’s gotta one-up himself.

You’ve all seen the video. After the trophy is presented, after they’ve all taken their turn skating around the rink with it, after the confetti is done being sprayed, when the major news cameras have left and there are *only* five hundred cameras trained on the ice, Jack Zimmermann kisses his boyfriend at center ice.

Jack Zimmermann becomes the first openly gay player in the NHL.

[silence]

[more silence]

And this…this is why we watch sports.

We watch sports for the stories that transcend sports.

And this is one of them. And I can’t think of a kid, a man, more deserving of telling this story.

 

Now. There is more to this story that we might not have appreciated in the moment.

You can see this on the ice at the time, and at the press conference the next morning: all of Zimmermann’s teammates know he has a boyfriend. They’ve all met him. You can see them on the ice, right after the kiss, tussling his hair, hugging him, asking for pies.

(And if any of you have seen some of the *less* than acceptable comments left on the Falconers’ Instagram, you would have also seen Alexei Mashkov threatening to fight everyone and anyone who says anything bad about “Little B”.)

The management knew about Zimmermann’s boyfriend. They’ve met him. 

The staff – their freaking nutritionist is up there, talking about how he’s a good man.

Even if he keeps tempting his players to break their diet.

Jack Zimmermann was out to his team and the whole organization. And not only out: open! His boyfriend is an actual presence like any other wife or girlfriend.

The Falconers organization deserves a huge round of applause. Not just for bringing a Cup to Providence: but for this.

I’ve ranted about how dumb NHL General Managers and referees and the decision makers in this league are. And how you the viewer can be an NHL GM because look at how stupid these guys are, doing the same thing over and over, not realizing that the game has changed, the world has changed. They’re all so stupid!

The Falconers..they’re..not.

I said earlier that the Falconers are not a special team, or at least didn't look like one last March. That's not true at all.

Let’s first of all point out that one of the AGMs is Georgia Martin: the American Haley Wickenheiser. Five time Olympian, helped lead the Americans to their first ever Olympic gold, and after retiring from playing, she became the first female AGM in the NHL. That’s another amazing story but I said I’d save it for the podcast Steve get through it

The Falconers, created a culture where a player, regardless of whether or not he planned to come out publicly, felt comfortable being out to his teammates.

Where his partner felt comfortable meeting his teammates.

One of the players, I think it was Robinson, said something about him being the favorite babysitter for his kids? They’ve welcomed this man into the Falconer’s family as if he was no different from any other player’s wife or girlfriend.

And you don’t get that by accident. You can only get that through a dedicated effort to make it so.

We’ve heard the things people say. We know what boys and young men say when they think no one will hear them. For all the lip service that the NHL pays to “You Can Play”, how many teams have actually taken that to heart and stamped out that prejudice in the locker room?

Statistically speaking, Zimmermann can’t be the only gay or bi player in the league.

But he’s the only one that’s out.

And the fact that he’s on the Falconers is not a coincidence.

They created that environment. They took the pains to bring in players that were not only good players on good deals: they brought in good people.

Good people who they could count on to stand up in the locker room, on the bench, and on the ice, to prejudice.

And it paid off.

Do you think, do you think for a SECOND, that Jack Zimmermann would have signed with the Falconers, last March, if they didn’t have a culture that would treat him with respect?

And no offense to the rest of the team, but it’s very clear that they would have not gotten even half as far without him.

And this, I guess, is my final point.

 

We need this in the NHL.

 

Jack Zimmermann almost didn’t make it in this league.

He could have very easily left hockey behind, gone off with his history degree and become a footnote in NHL history of the hockey prince that never arrived.

How many Jack Zimmermanns do you think are out there?

I mean obviously, not exactly. He’s got the NHL pedigree behind him, the wealth, the advantages that come with that.

But how many kids are out there who have the raw skill to be hockey players, professional hockey players, but they have anxiety.

Or they’re gay.

Or something else that makes them a target.

How many of those kids get washed out of the system before we ever hear about them?

How many hockey teams have missed a STAR because they took one step inside that locker room, that rink, that management building, heard a certain slur and said “Nope. I’m not doing this here.”

How many “can’t-miss” prospects have *been* missed because the management, the coaches, the culture at every single level of this sport, did not welcome them?

How many boys watched Gretzky, Lemiuex, CROSBY, on TV and said “I love hockey!”

And they skated on the public rink and thought “I love hockey!”

And they joined a team and heard awful things from their fellow teammates, their coaches, the people in the stands and thought “Maybe hockey’s not for me.”

What amount of talent has the NHL missed because it wouldn’t take homophobia seriously? What teams would be in a WAY better position if they had *Jack Zimmermann* but not only could they not get rid of the bigotry in their organization, they didn’t even realize, didn’t even consider that was something they could or should do?

And now those kids can look at the Stanley Cup winning team and say “Hey. Maybe hockey does have a place for me.”

Maybe some of them have left hockey already, and they can look at Jack Zimmermann who left and came back and won and they can say “Maybe it’s not too late to go back.”

Those kids can look at Jack Zimmermann and say “he can play. And so can I.”

That’s why Conn Smythe winner, alternate captain, openly gay Stanley Cup CHAMPION, JACK FREAKING ZIMMERMANN, is the best story in the NHL, and the best story in sports.

**Author's Note:**

> Things Steve, Adam, and Jesse talk about on the podcast (aka things I cut from this fic because it was getting too long and incoherent):  
> \- How amazing Georgia Martin is
> 
> \- How it’s no coincidence that she got hired and then the organization seemed to turn around and she’s definitely gonna be the next GM
> 
> \- Jack Zimmermann’s first NHL fight, against Alex Burrows; which quickly became Jack Zimmermann’s first NHL line brawl featuring Alexei Mashkov with both linesmen on his back trying to stop him from literally murdering Alex Burrows  
> o Including some speculation on what Burrows said to warrant that reaction from the mature and reserved Zimmermann. But he definitely deserved it.
> 
> \- Alexei Mashkov aka Tater and how he’s awesome and has the best social media presence  
> o “That couch from when he visited Samwell?” “Yeah that thing looked radioactive.” “Guys, it wasn’t that bad.” “Jesse you are banned from ever owning furniture if you think that couch wasn’t that bad.”
> 
> \- How Jack Zimmermann has an Instagram that’s either really beautifully framed hockey pictures or accidental butt pictures.
> 
> \- Please don’t troll NHL player’s significant others on social media 
> 
> \- How the NHL finally has an answer to “where did all this jam come from?” (reference to a previous episode referring to Elliote Friedman’s 34 Thoughts where thought 29 was a note about how NHL players across the league simultaneously started talking about pie and jam around Easter instead of the playoff push)
> 
> \- Does anyone know why he’s called “Poots”? (this segment will be revisited in 2018-19 with the question “Does anyone know why he’s called Mango?”)
> 
> \- Fitzgerald (“aw come on, why can’t we call him Poots”) had an underrated rookie season as well.
> 
> \- If there was a playoff Vezina, would Snowy win? (“Shouldn’t there be NHL Awards for just the post-season?” “There is Steve, it’s called the Conn Smythe.”)
> 
> \- Jack Zimmermann: awkward duck and accidental sass master 
> 
> \- “There’s someone at the door…Oh hello…*mumbling from the interrupter* No problem, what’s…um okay *interrupter leaves*” “What’s that?” “It’s a box, and it’s addressed to you Steve.” “Um…” “Open it!” “Okay….it’s a pie!” “…WHAT?!” “It has a pastry Iggy on it! *shows the pie to the camera. There is indeed a pastry topping that looks like a goldendoodle*” “You got a Bittle pie!!” “How did he KNOW?” “I think he’s a wizard.” “A PIE wizard.” “It’s still warm!” “Oh wait, there’s a note.” “You gonna read it?” “Wow. I know the listeners can’t experience this, but this studio smells AMAZING now.”


End file.
